When Seth Godin said that charging a small fee for using Craigslist would improve the site’s service and usability by preventing spam and scams, I thought that this is not a bad idea at all, and that perhaps we could expand it to social media platforms, and especially to micro blogging service Twitter.
If the spam issue is so bad that Robert Cringley declared Twitter as dead, perhaps it’s time to take measures – more drastic measures than adding convenient spam reporting links – and charge for the service?
Of course, charging – even a small amount – for a service that used to be free could backfire and kill the service immediately. People have become spoiled. They expect the Internet in general, and social media in particular, to be free.
Would you pay $1 per month to use Twitter?
I'm Vered, a blogger for hire and social media consultant. I create and implement social media campaigns for my clients, with the goals of increasing brand awareness and loyalty, improving search engine rankings and driving targeted traffic to my clients' websites.
